SAVING OUR PLANET - REDUCING ONE KWH AT A TIME

May 7th, 2013 SNEKHA SELVAKUMAR

The Process
TODAYS WASTAGE IS TOMORROW'S SHORTAGE
What does it take a family of four to use 300 KwH/month? For my yearlong project, I worked with my family in order to reduce our electricity consumption. Although my familys electricity usage isnt that bad, I still felt that there was room for improvement. So I decided to take it as a challenge and reduce my familys usage. I started of this project by making a clear and organized plan and then implementing it in our daily life. The rst step we took towards conserving electricity was switching off the lights and air-cons when not in use! My plan also included the following steps: setting the air-cons to 23 degree celsius, making use of daylight in the morning, turning on the washing machines only with full loads, turning off all the electronic appliances when not in use, charging the electronics (iphones, ipads, laptops etc.) in the morning instead of charging them overnight and overcharging them. Although we came up with this plan and we agreed to follow the plan, everything didnt go as per the plan because we kept forgetting about it. So then I came up with an idea, and we decided to put sticky notes all around the house, specially, beside the switchboards as a reminder. That idea really helped my family to keep up with the plan and implement it.

My family has been very supportive and cooperative with helping me. My familys efforts can be seen in the results as we have come down from 575 KwH in August to 485 KwH in March. There were a few ups and downs in the middle though. For example, in November and February my KwH went up because we werent following our plan due to many other distractions like in February I had

Looking at the Results

guests so there were more people in the house, which resulted in using more electricity. As you can see in the data, December is the month when I actually stayed on top of the plan and made sure that everyone followed it and so my efforts showed of in that months bill. I hope that we continue this plan and make consistent efforts to have a sustainable living.

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Finding the Equation of my Fitted Line!

By Snekha The rst step towards making a prediction is drawing a tted line in the graph with my monthly data. The efforts of my family have proven to have paid off as the tted line on the graph has a negative slope which means that my electricity usage has been decreasing. The next step is to nd the equation of this tted line. To do this, I chose two points (1, 539) and (7, 485). In order to nd the equation of the line, I need to use the formula y=mx+b. So lets rst start by nding the slope of the line by using this formula:

LINEAR RELATIONSHIPS AND TRENDS

Considering that my tted line goes downhill and is a example of linear decay, this matches with the trends that my family is working towards to make a positive difference. There is a clear and strong relationship between the line and the trends. The more electricity we conserve each month the steeper the slope will be. There is also a clear connection between the efforts my family has put in this the action and the line because when we put in more effort and make sure everything goes right, the KwH decreases however sometimes when we become careless and forget about our plans, then again our usage goes up drastically. This can be clearly seen in my graph and my table.

one of the coordinates with x and y. In my case, I chose to substitute the ordered pair (1, 539). Heres what it will look like after substitution:

Therefore, the equation of my tted line is y= -9x + 548. Now I will use this equation to make a prediction about how many months it will take my family to bring my monthly electricity

So now, just substitute and solve it:

Now we solve this equation to nd out y-intercept(b). Following are the steps of how I found Now I know that the slope of my tted line is -9. So far this is what my equation looked like: y = -9x+b. Next, I have to determine my y-intercept. To do this, I will have to substitute any b using the formula above:

usage to 300 KwH.

Some Tips for Redu cing Your Electricity Usage! Make use of Daylight in the morning. Turn of all the elect ronics when not in use. Use energy efcien t light bulbs. Turn off the lights, air -cons, fans when not in us e. Se t yo ur ai r- co ns to 23 degree celsius.

Now that I have my equation, I just need to substitute and solve to nd the no. of months it will take my family to bring down my electricity usage to 300 KwH per month. As y represents the amount of KwH in the equation, we have to substitute 300 for y and then solve for x. So this what the substitution and the solving should look like:

MAKING A PREDICTION!

In conclusion, it will take my family approximately 28 months to bring our electricity usage down to 300 KwH if we continue reducing our usage at this rate!